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European Photography Award | 2017

Established in 2004 as a prestigious international acknowledgement, the European Photography Award is assigned every year to the outstanding artworks of students from the most important European universities and academies of photography. The competition is aimed at encouraging a dialogue and confrontation among the artistic researches and visions of the students coming from different contexts and educational paths, creating in this way an interesting overview on the new directions of the language of contemporary imagery at international level.

The two winners are selected by a committee of representatives of the participating institutions. Their works are shown together with the artworks of the shortlist at the exhibition dedicated to the Award at Fondazione Fotografia Modena in July 2017.

The winner of the 2017 edition is Francesca Zoe Paterniani from the Fondazione Fotografia Modena, and the second price goes to Victoire Eouzan from École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs Paris.

Francesca Zoe Paterniani

Born in Pesaro, Italy, in 1991. After a Bachelor’s degree in History of Photography at the University of Bologna, she graduated at the Visual,Performance and Media Arts Master’s course, and collaborated at the same time with different contemporary art galleries as intern. During 2016 she spent two months in residency in Amman, Jordan and she is now collaborating with l’Artiere publishing house. Her research explores photography as a performative medium through which make an action and creating new relationships and meaning.

Jordan General Elections, 2016

When I;landed in Amman on September 1st the parliamentary elections were about to come. On the way from Queen Alia airport to Darat al Funun, I saw hundreds of electoral campaign posters.;I;was overwhelmed by the complexity of social and visual landscapes of the city and I felt the need to explore it. Amman is many cities altogether, and they are not tadily juxtaposed, they are squeezed, mashed into each other, so that you can barely understand where one ends and another one begins. While Iwas trying to find an orientation and some reference points, the posters have been my fil rouge, they seemed to be the only common thread between completely different areas such as Abdoun, the most wealthy and westernized district, and Ain Albasha, a former refugee camp at the border of the city. For the first twenty days I followed them as an attempt to disentangle both the political and geographical complexity of Amman, even if I knew the whole campaign was totally impermanent. The fanzine was the natural outcome of this process, as I wanted a temporary container for a temporary map of the city. The installation is meant as a reflection on how we represent political and social power: there is a formal historical representation that stands on a way more chaotic and transitory background. The fanzine was printed in 30 copies in Amman in October 2016 with the support of Khalid Shoman Foundation and Darat al Funun.

All the copies were donated to the people that helped making it, and this is the second edition of 30 copies.

On Political Theatre by Zakaria Mohammed

In Jordan the parliamentary elections take place every four years, which is a special event for Jordanians not because its a celebration of democracy but more noticeably in how the faces of cities, towns and streets are changed drastically; a few weeks prior to the elections, the streets will be filled with banners and poster with faces of politicians advertising their candidacy. The way the elections work in Jordan is through candidate lists, each list registers itself to a predefined zone, zones are allocated to certain geographical areas and the people residing in these geographical zones can vote only for the lists registered in it. In our country the tribal system still has a very strong presence on both the social and political scenes. so when the parliamentary elections happen -which is the only “political” elections that we have; all other political positions are assigned by either the king or someone who represents the king - so when the elections happen candidates from big families (tribes) register themselves in zones that are dominantly consisting of their family members, which for most of the time ensures their winning. Because of the presence of the tribal system people vote for their family members rather than someone else based on their political agenda. Another thing you need to understand is Jordan’s geographical position which plays a big role in its political one; Jordan shares the biggest borders with Israel and it’s currently surrounded by wars: in my own personal reading of the situation i think its important for multiple players on the international political scene that Jordan remains relatively calm and have certain stand points towards certain international political issues. If you ask anyone in the street what their thoughts are on the peace treaty with Israel you’re guaranteed to get an opposition to it. Generally the whole political scene in Jordan seems like a big theatre act by actors who don’t seem to care if their act is believable or not. The last elections that happened in 2016 had a participation percentage of only 37%, its very rare to hear that someone voluntarily went to make a vote especially among young people who make up to 70% of the population. As Jordanians we’re now accustomed to seeing banners of politicians faces with empty political slogans that seem to repeat itself among all candidates covering the streets, giving the city a bad facelift which perhaps is the only change the elections bring.